Useful tips for iPhone and iPad spring cleaning

Summer time has started, the birds are singing and nature is awakening, spring! Wonderful, the urge to give your house a thorough cleaning is becoming stronger, but you can also give your iPhone or iPad extra attention.

Time to bring order to the mess of apps, data and data, time for a spring cleaning for iOS and iPadOS. With the help of the tips below, we will help you to properly tidy up your iPhone and iPad.

Uninstall unnecessary applications

We have to admit that it is a difficult job, but you can definitely delete applications from your iPhone or iPad that you have hardly or never started in the last six months. Not only does it create order, it frees up extra space on your device, useful if you only have 16 or 32 GB at your disposal.

You can easily find out when you last used an application via the settings of your iPhone or iPad. To do this, follow the steps below:

• Open ‘Settings’
• Navigate to ‘General’
• Tap on ‘[apparaat]-storage’

A list of all apps will be loaded with the time you last opened this application under the name. If this has never happened or has been a very long time ago, you may consider removing the application. To do this, tap the app in the list and choose ‘Delete’.

Clean up or delete

If you cannot say goodbye to the app, you also have the option to clean up the application via the ‘Clean up’ button. This frees up space by removing the application itself from your iPhone or iPad. The personal settings, documents and data are retained, including a shortcut to the app. When you download the app again, you can use it immediately again, including previous preferences and data. You can read more about cleaning up iPhone apps via the link below.

Also suitable for standard apps

Since iOS 10 it is also possible to remove some standard applications from your iPhone or iPad. So you never use the standard Mail, Cards or Notes app? Then you can easily delete it from your iPhone or iPad. You can uninstall an application via the steps above or by placing your finger on an app and waiting for it to all start wiggling. You can then tap the cross to delete the app.

Check your backups

It is very important that you regularly backup your devices. If iCloud is activated, a backup will be made with every charging session. You can check this via Settings ▸ your name ▸ iCloud ▸ iCloud Backup ▸ Enable the ‘iCloud Backup’ option. You can also make a copy of your settings and data via Finder or iTunes.

Free up iCloud storage space for backups

iCloud can also become quite full with backups of your iPhone or iPad, and in some cases old copies are also stored. You can check this via Settings ▸ Your name ▸ iCloud ▸ Manage storage ▸ Backups. Tap the desired one and delete it if necessary.

Automatically updating software and apps

It is very important to keep the software on your devices up to date, serious security problems and errors have often been resolved with an update. Under iOS and iPadOS it is possible to automatically update the software and apps when there is an update. This way you’ll never forget to install an update again.

You can enable this for apps via Settings ▸ App Store ▸ enable ‘App updates’. You can automatically update the software of your device itself via Settings ▸ General ▸ Software update ▸ Automatic updates ▸ enable the option of the same name.

Install new wallpaper

Spring is the perfect excuse to change the background of your iPhone or iPad. iOS and iPadOS have a lot of nice wallpapers by default that you can set via Settings ▸ Wallpaper ▸ Choose a new wallpaper. Since iOS 16, you can further personalize the lock screens with widgets, fonts and more.

Download new wallpaper

Are you looking for inspiration for a new wallpaper? Then you can also look for new ones yourself. On our iCandy page you will find lots of fun and beautiful wallpapers for your Apple devices. We also explain how you can set up wallappers on your iPhone or iPad.

Clean up duplicate photos

Not only is it a good idea to clean up your apps now, this is also great for other files such as your photos. Sit back and remove the copies that were unsuccessful or unnecessary. Since iOS 16, iPadOS 16 and macOS Ventura, Photos has its own detection for exact duplicate photos.

Have you installed an older software version? Then you can use the application CleanMy®Phone your entire Clean up your iPhone’s photo library and remove duplicate photos. In addition, the app is more extensive than Apple’s standard function, so CleanMy®Phone also searches for photos that are similar so that you can save the best ones.

CleanMy®Phone

Category: Services Photo and video Valuation: Developer: MacPaw TRY FOR FREE

Place photos in albums and folders

If you really want to create order in the chaos, you can thoroughly clean up your photos and place them in albums and then in folders. For example, you can place all photos from a specific holiday in an album and then place all albums in a folder. This way you can collect all the photos from a year. You can get started right away with the help of the tips below:

• Create a new album in photos
• Add photos and videos to an existing album
• Place photo albums in folders

Additional tips for iPhone and iPad spring cleaning

• Extend iPhone battery life thanks to optimized charging
• View battery usage in detail and gain better insight
• Save storage space with HEIF and HEVC for photos and videos
• Delete remaining storage space on an iPhone or iPad
• View WhatsApp usage and the number of messages sent
• View apps that send notifications and disable them if necessary
• Discover nice iPhone covers and cases